Selected Works

Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest George Herbert is one the most famous and popular of the metaphysical poets. Born in 1593 in Wales to a prominent and wealthy family, Herbert was educated at Westminster School as a child and later at Cambridge, where he earned a master’s degree and became the university’s Public Orator, a position he held for many years. Herbert was never a healthy person and he died at the age of 39 in 1633, a few short years after he left Cambridge and took holy orders in the Church of England. His poetry was published in the year of his death and became instantly popular and wide-read. All of Herbert’s surviving poems are religious in nature, characterized by their directness of expression, intricate rhyme schemes, and the use of wordplay and puns. Included in this volume are the poems known collectively as “The Temple” as well as a selection of his prose works, most notably “The Country Parson”.